It’s for Kay, she told herself. It’s all worth it for Kay. Kay seemed very far away. I will tell him all about this. He’ll be very impressed. He’ll say, “Oh, Gerta, how you’ve suffered for me…” She engaged in this fantasy for a few moments, and then sighed. She was fundamentally honest, even with herself. Kay would look at her and say “You walked through the woods and it was cold? That’s your great suffering?” “It was scary,” she would say. “And I had a blister.” Gerta could actually hear in her head how “I had a blister” would hang in the air between them. She flushed a little, at the sheer
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